


The Fundamentals of Wizarding Wandmaking

by LeagueOfWonder



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Hermione Granger, Black Hermione Granger, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, POV Hermione Granger, Politics, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-War, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Politics (Harry Potter), Research, Romance, Slow Burn, So much research you guys, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeagueOfWonder/pseuds/LeagueOfWonder
Summary: Here is a peculiar fact for your consideration: books on wandmaking are stored in the restricted section.Or, Hermione considers wandmaking a preventative measure. She has learned all too well that her blood makes her a target. Draco and Theo are wary of the Ministry's treatment of purebloods. Too many wands have been taken away and they fear theirs will be next. It all spirals from there.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott, Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott
Comments: 11
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

Here is a peculiar fact for your consideration: books on wandmaking are stored in the restricted section.

In the midst of sixth year, Voldemort’s followers began to snap the wands of muggleborns. It wasn’t in the headlines so much as it was on the seventh page of the Prophet in a small box that most would have overlooked. Perhaps a few whispers of it filtered through the halls of Hogwarts, driven by furtive letters delivered on ragged owls to halfblood students who would go deadly pale as they learned the fate of their father or mother, maybe folding the letter in shaky hands and excusing themselves for a few minutes. Those whispers began. Still, by and large, it was not the subject of attention just yet. Was that deliberate? Was the Ministry involved in a coverup? I will leave that to your no doubt astute examination. I give only the facts of the case and the facts were these: the wizarding public turned a blind eye.

Hermione Granger did not believe in blind eyes. Hermione believed in fixing the problem, in looking straight at it with such furor that it vanished into a wispy puff of smoke. She believed in careful study, planning, angry letters, campaigns, protests, effective paper pushing, and changed legislation. I cannot say why Hermione did not begin an awareness campaign, but she was far from lax in noticing the shortfalls of the day and the danger she was in outside of Hogwarts grounds.

Hermione did what she did best. She read all of the books on wands that Hogwarts offered. Theory, history. A lack of reading material was never the issue. But—when she asked Madam Pince for books on how to make wands, she was told what all the books said, “Much too dangerous. Leave it to the professionals.” Hermione had never been good at leaving things to those who considered themselves above her. All too often, those above her were much stupider than she, and both of them knew it.

Still, Hermione Granger had stumbled upon a problem. A problem she had not even considered a problem for the first five years of her time in the wizarding world. The Ministry had sole regulatory power over the creation of wands. A Ministry infiltrated by Voldemort, no less. The subject of how to create wands was restricted from the general public, even illegal. Books on it were considered banned material.

Hermione wondered whether there was a problem with such strict regulation of how witches and wizards practiced their magic, even in a world without Voldemort and his followers. Whether the potential for corruption, manipulation, misuse was high in even the most normal of times. Whether it would pass under the radar as appropriate. Indeed, she wondered whether it already had.

The Hermione we know so well would have found no regulations or laws to be a hindrance in learning a subject. The Hermione we know so well considered the preservation of her magical abilities to be of the utmost importance. A snapped wand would cripple her ability to protect herself and the ones she loved. It would kill everything she had worked for since she was eleven. She would not have allowed the potential for a waking death, should not have allowed it. 

But, her priorities had an order, and wandless and nonverbal magic ranked above wandmaking itself. She became excellent in both, and when her seventh year became a mad dash across the country, she put aside the idea as a temporarily lost cause. Horcruxes became the order of the day, of every day.

So, when Hermione arrived at the gates of a rebuilt Hogwarts in the start of her eighth year, she was firmly decided. The first order of business was to learn to make wands. Covertly, secretly. The Ministry, her friends, they didn’t need to know. Shouldn’t know. She would be her own savior and she would make sure she could never be made helpless in the face of great evil. Hermione Granger would become a wandmaker.

The restricted section became the sole aim and object of her life. She would sit a careful three desks away and study that rope. Quickly, she decided that a more wary five desks away from Madam Pince might be the better solution. She created a careful schedule, noting precise times that Pince looked away, appeared distracted, or most notably, left her observation post altogether. A pattern soon emerged. 

Hermione was ready to enact her plan within a day or two when the eighth years received word from Headmistress McGonagall that, due to special circumstances, they would receive extended hours in the library until the eleventh hour. The note specified that they would be unsupervised, though the extraordinarily detailed “grave consequences” of rule-breaking carried the distinct air of Pince’s pursed lips upon observing rowdy first years mishandling a book.

It would take another week before Hermione considered covert supervision of extra eighth year hours sufficiently relaxed to venture into the stacks labeled with that all too tempting RESTRICTED sign fluttering in a breeze she couldn’t feel.

It was a matter of moments to hike her robes over the rope and happily make her way to the W corner she had been dreaming of for well over a year. A pleased satisfaction and just a hint of adrenaline suffused her limbs. Her fingers felt tingly with all the new knowledge that would be sure to be in her head by the end of the night.

Imagine her surprise when she discovered that particular corner already occupied.

She drew to a surprised halt, quickly whispering a disillusionment charm. While it wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny, it would work from a reasonable distance. She paced carefully forward, drawing to a halt a few metres away from the two boys already there. 

Hermione’s brow drew together as she observed their hunched whispering. A blond head, too blond to be anyone else but Malfoy. The other she didn’t recognize from behind, though she had no doubt there would a Slytherin tie affixed to his neck when he turned around. 

Malfoy twisted, turning back to the shelves and his friend followed, granting Hermione a profile view of his face. Theodore Nott. Hermione had spoken no more than two sentences to him in all of her time at Hogwarts, and not sentences she remembered. He was a pureblood, certainly, but not a bully. From the few glimpses she could recall, he had been more of a bystander. Perhaps he had a few quips on occasion. She certainly had no memory of him being quite so close with Malfoy.

She was curious to find them so intent on the restricted wandmaking books that she had been hoping to peruse. She looked forlornly at the section that seemed far less substantial absent the books Malfoy and Nott had stacked in their arms. 

She considered letting them go on their way and taking those remaining, but the choice had been made for her years ago when she decided to place the pursuit of knowledge above all else, even, she wrinkled her nose, a civil conversation with Draco Malfoy.

She cast a halfhearted finite and stepped out of the shadows of the bookshelves, making her way with a confidence she wasn’t entirely sure she felt to stop in front of Malfoy and Nott. They turned as she walked, hearing the tap of her shoes against the wooden boards of the floor. 

Malfoy grimaced. “Granger.”

“Malfoy.”

“Was there something you needed?” He looked her up and down, taking in her askew robes and frazzled hair.

“Those books you’re holding,” she replied.

Nott looked down at them briefly, almost as if to double-check that he was in fact holding books. He looked up. “We don’t have nefarious purposes,” he placed particular emphasis on the last two words, twisting them in his mouth with a contempt that made Hermione wonder who he was quoting, “if that’s what you’re implying.”

Hermione shook her head, opening her mouth almost before the thoughts formed. “Not at all,” though she hadn’t realized she thought their intentions innocent until she said s. “Simply that I was hoping to read some of them before closing.”

“Oh,” Nott said, his shoulders sinking from a protective position. 

Malfoy looked down at the books and seemed to put two and two together rather faster than she expected. The corners of his mouth took on a pinched quality before he nodded. 

“We’ll share then,” he said, before turning back to the shelves.

“Share?” Hermione heard herself ask. 

Nott shrugged, “It’s not as if two people can read,” he paused to count the books in Malfoy’s and his arms, “eight books at once. Might as well.” 

Malfoy straightened from leaning down to look at the shelves, placing a final book on the already slightly wobbling stack under his arm. “Nine.”

Hermione stepped forward, feeling Nott’s robes brush against her hand as she looked at the shelf. The few that they had left on the art looked particularly advanced, or older. Some might say stodgy. Readable, but best left to the second half of research. She was reluctant to leave without her own choice and reached for a thick book she knew she wouldn’t read that night, or any night soon. 

“Well?” she said, book clutched tightly in her hand.

Nott nodded shortly and walked to the edge of the library, stopping beneath a huge window stretching to the ceiling that looked out onto the Forbidden Forest and the night sky with all of its breathtaking stars. The table arranged beneath the window was old with a deep scar along its centre, clearly not among the newer replacements that had been necessary after the battle. Nott and Malfoy took the chairs on opposite sides of the square table, falling into what appeared to be an oft-practiced custom, so she slipped into the remaining seat facing the window. 

Nott and Malfoy piled their books into the middle of the desk, each picking one from among the piles and opening them to where they had left off. Nott rooted around in a rucksack already abandoned at the table, cheerfully retrieving a sheaf of paper with what appeared to be detailed notes inscribed. It looked to be the work of many hours.

Hermione followed suit, setting her lone book amongst the others. She spent a few minutes studying the titles and authors of the books, flipping to the table of contents in a couple of the books, before she decided on the most promising of the bunch: Fundamentals of Wizarding Wandmaking by H. J. Ollivander, retrieved her own notes, and settled in for the evening.

Hermione only surfaced from her book with Nott’s tentative nudge against her shoulder. 

She looked up, a silent question in the quirk of her eyebrow.

“It’s 10:45. We have to put these away before the library closes.”

Hermione nodded, quickly noting the page number she had left off on before packing her notes back into her bag. Malfoy had already grabbed four of the books, winding his way through the shelves back to the restricted section, so she grabbed three of the books and followed. She heard Nott follow a few seconds later.

Their strange processional arrived at the W section and she replaced the books aside Malfoy’s as Nott did the same aside hers, their fingers brushing as they placed them upright. They stood awkwardly for a moment in a half moon around the shelf before she jolted and began to walk back towards the regular shelves. 

She had barely taken two steps before Malfoy called, “Granger.” He paused as she turned before continuing softly. “If you just take one for the night, she won’t notice it’s missing. Pince only does the rounds of the restricted section every three days. Her next is the day after tomorrow.”

Hermione’s eyes widened slightly, surprised she hadn’t made the connection herself. She already knew about Pince’s habit from her days notating her daily schedule. She nodded quickly, stepping forward and gingerly pulling Fundamentals off the shelf and placing it in her bag.

She turned to leave before a question occurred to her when neither made the move to secure their own books. “Won’t you take anything?”

Malfoy and Nott shared a glance. Nott spoke, “Better to take one at a time.”

Hermione looked down at the book in her hands and back at them. She thought of thanking them before deciding better of it. She would not thank Draco Malfoy for any favours; he owed her far more than borrowing a restricted book for a night could cover.

“Good night,” she said instead, turning and leaving the library. She read until the grey light of dawn began to filter through the dorm windows.


	2. Chapter 2

Night after night, Hermione found herself returning to that table in the far back of the library. If Nott and Malfoy arrived before her—they always seemed to arrive together—a stack of books would already be on the table, including whichever she was reading at that moment. If she arrived first, she brought the books over to the table and began to study. Invariably, they all arrived within a few minutes of each other, just after Pince left at 8 and the other students had been sent to their rooms. 

Hermione and Malfoy and Nott would sit in companionable silence for the few hours, though to say they sat together would be an overstatement. They sat adjacent to one another, ignoring the others’ existence. Nott and Malfoy functioned as a unit, Hermione as an uncomfortable but thankfully temporary disturbance to their lives. 

It took two weeks for Hermione to broach the subject that she had been so curious about. 

“Why wandmaking?”

Nott and Malfoy looked up from the books they had only just cracked open, having arrived only a minute before. 

Nott sat back, leaning against the chair heavily, head flung back in thought. After a few moments, he turned back to her. “I assume you know that many Death Eaters have been punished, and rightfully so, with having their wands confiscated for a number of years, or indefinitely.”

Hermione nodded.

He continued, “Draco and I are . . . concerned that the repercussions may continue after the trials. Possibly on people from certain families, or even those who were exonerated.” Malfoy watched her as Nott spoke, examining her face for any hint of disgust or disagreement, though she allowed precious little to show. “Well, that and Draco's got control issues.”

Malfoy laughed and kicked Nott under the table. “You’re one to talk.”

Hermione smiled a little, unsure how to reply, and turned back to her book.

Though, what Hermione did and what Hermione thought were two very different beasts in this instance. She took to observing the pureblood Slytherins at mealtimes and in classes. 

Pansy Parkinson looked wan, dark circles showed under eyes and her skin seemed a shade or two paler than her habitual trips to Greece or Morocco usually allowed. For all that her colouring was poor, she retained her usual habits. Her skirt was three or four inches above propriety, and Hermione even thought she caught a flash of lacy red knickers once when Pansy jumped up slightly too enthusiastically from the table in the Great Hall one morning.

Blaise Zabini was his usual self, acerbic and haughty, laughing at everyone around him. His robes were tailored to perfection, his usual glamours over his face concealing any imperfections. He seemed just the same. Hermione thought he had his mother to thank for having the sense to, at least not publicly, align herself or her son with Voldemort and his lot. 

Malfoy looked, well. Perhaps it would be rude to describe Malfoy in his current state. We’ll give it a few chapters, hope he livens up a bit. The Malfoys do have that nasty habit of suing for slander. Best not to test things too much, on the off-chance their solicitor is still up to the task after that unfortunate run-in with, well, I would say You-Know-Who, but you really do know who. 

Theodore Nott, never a person she had bothered to notice much before. She couldn’t say whether he looked the same as before, but Hermione’s bet would be erring more toward the “significantly worse” category. He looked thin, almost gaunt, the type of person who had to drill the hole in his belt to keep his trousers from sliding off his frame. Deprived, but nothing that Hogwarts’ meals couldn’t fix after a few months.

Hermione looked ruefully down at her own legs. Months without a sure meal had wrought significant changes on her body. Her robes practically slid off her frame. The first time she tried to put on her uniform skirt, it slipped off her entirely and left her standing in her underwear with the grey, pleated fabric pooling at her ankles. She had considered a tailoring spell, but (rightly) decided that they weren’t her forte. Instead, she had sat down with a needle and thread and sewn a button onto the back of the skirt, added a crude hole to thread it through a few inches away, and made the garment at least wearable, if not a work of art. She felt like her mother in that moment, in the sitting room stitching together rips in the knees of a six-year-old Hermione's trousers. She simply resolved to keep the robes on over her skirt and left it at that. 

Her breasts had gone down at least a cup size, maybe two, and she hardly needed to wear a bra anymore. Though, to be quite frank, Hermione was more inclined to consider that a positive. Her ribs showed through her skin almost grotesquely and her hip bones protruded sharply. Mudblood was carved into her forearm in letters that were still faintly red and sent occasional shooting pains through her arm and hand, even so many months later.

Hermione sometimes found herself caught in the mirror, taking in what a year as a fugitive had done to her body. That said, the mirrors at Hogwarts had started complimenting her cheekbones now, so it wasn’t all bad. 

Hermione half-heartedly picked at a biscuit before putting it down again, sighing.

“Hermione, you look sad,” Luna said.

“That’s because I am sad.” Hermione paused. “Isn’t this the wrong table?”

“I switched my tie to Gryffindor so I could sit with you. You haven’t been speaking in any of our classes, which Harry told me was unusual when I flooed him last week.”

“Oh, thank you, Luna. When did you floo Harry? From Hogwarts?”

“Oh, Draco feels guilty that I was in his cellar. He lets me come to Malfoy Manor whenever I want.”

“You go back to Malfoy Manor?” Hermione shuddered. She couldn’t imagine going back.

“Oh, yes. I’ve never had such lovely wine. It makes wonderful patterns on the walls.”

“Sorry?”

“Narcissa is redecorating.”

“Ah,” Hermione said, as if that answered the question.

*

That evening, at the usual table in the library, Hermione shifted in her seat, squirming from nervousness or future discomfort. 

“The loo is down the hall, Granger,” Nott said. The smirk on his face said that he was getting entirely too comfortable in her presence. 

“Malfoy?” Hermione said.

He hummed in reply, eyes still on the bulging text in front of him. 

“Luna said she goes to Malfoy Manor sometimes.”

“Sometimes? My mother has started owling her sweets every week.”

Nott laughed. “Sounds like Narcissa has a new favourite child.”

Draco sniffed, “At least you’ve been demoted. That’s a boon to us all.”

“From Mrs. Malfoy's favourite child?” Hermione asked.

“From her second favourite to her third.” Draco grinned wickedly. “Of three.”

It was Nott's turn to mock offence. 

*

Days turned into weeks. Hermione spent her days writing perfunctory essays and sitting in the back of classes. Her evenings and nights stretched into one long blur of note-taking and poring over every word of the books at her disposal. She quickly caught up with Malfoy and Nott, and then outstripped them. It wasn’t long before the books that had looked so thick and intimidating began to become comprehensible and intriguing.

She slept little. She worked until dawn at the small desk in front of her bed, with one candle guttering in the coolness of the tower. When the sun began to crest the horizon, she went to bed until breakfast.

The cool shadows she worked through the night for began to carve themselves under her eyes. Her hands carried constant ink stains. Nott and Malfoy began to stare at her surreptitiously as she bent over restricted books in their few precious hours each evening. 

One night, she found herself being gently shaken awake by a slightly cringing Malfoy. He immediately stopped touching her when she opened her eyes.

“Alright?” Nott asked as he collected the books spread out over the table. He picked up the book that lay open in front of her, deftly snapping it shut and placing it on the two piles. Malfoy grabbed one and Nott the other. 

“Yes,” she said, standing up. She reached for the book Nott had taken from her.

He shook his head, swiveling so she couldn’t reach the book.

“What?”

“Go sleep, Granger. It’ll be here when you get back.”

Hermione pressed her lips together until they formed a thin white line. She stood still for moment before nodding once, hair bobbing furiously around her. She turned sharply and walked away.

She didn’t go back to her room that night. It took little effort to make her away across the fields until she stood in front of the lake, hidden from view of the windows of Hogwarts.

Hermione sighed and lay down, back against an inclined tree trunk. The sounds of the night surrounded her. Crickets chirped songs, fireflies flashed in a colourful dance. The moon shone against the water of the lake and birds called love songs to one another. The stars stretched wide and welcoming above her. She sighed and drifted into a restful sleep for the first time since she had come back to Hogwarts.

She woke to the blazing sunset announcing the dawn of a new day. She rose carefully from the copse of trees, brushing the dirt off her robes. She straightened her hair, picked up her bag, and darted back inside. She cheerily finished her breakfast that day, barely noticing the quick glances Nott and Malfoy darted her way across the Great Hall.

Classes dragged pleasantly, instead of zooming by in the way they had begun to these days. Her professors’ voices felt as if they were penetrating her head again, instead of bouncing off and hanging uselessly in the air as she drifted through her day.

She raised her hand twice to answer questions. She felt a little as if she was the same person who used to walk these halls as a girl.

That evening, she rifled through the books of another topic in the restricted section, finally selecting one with an air of delight before she made her way, a few minutes late, to the usual table at the back of the library.

They looked up as she approached, a silent greeting. 

“Theo thought you wouldn’t come tonight,” Malfoy said.

“Did you?”

Malfoy smiled and turned back to his book.

Hermione noticed that Malfoy and Nott smiled more and more as the days passed. What had seemed at first to be a sober partnership was lightening gradually, more jokes and references slipping past in front of her. It became gradually obvious that these were two people who had considered themselves part of a pair for quite some time. She wondered when this had happened, when Malfoy had become a different person than the one who had ordered his inherited henchmen around.

Against her own will, and any sense of likelihood, she began to get to know them.

*

Several nights later, she triumphantly pulled a huge stack of parchment from her bag. Malfoy barely looked up, but Theo eyed it suspiciously, looking back and forth between her and the stack.

She smirked at him and murmured a few words, tapping a wandmaking book sitting in front of her before using the tip of her wand to gently drag a faintly glowing blue line that emerged from the book onto the new parchment next to her. It suffused the parchment, bleeding through from page to page. A few seconds later, it disappeared and left neat rows of ink across the pages. 

“You’ve figured out how to copy it?” Malfoy asked.

Hermione nodded.

Nott laughed, too loudly. He clapped a hand guiltily over his mouth and briefly glanced out as if to ensure no one had heard him. 

“This is amazing,” he said. “We can copy all of them and not have to worry about all this.” He gestured to encompass their hidden position and the restricted section with its warning rope a few feet away.

She nodded. “I know, but first we’re going to need more parchment than I have. Do you each want a copy, or should I just make one?”

They looked at each other for a moment in silent communication.

“We should each have one,” Nott said. "In case.”

Hermione nodded, quickly flipping through the thick stack of parchment beside her, separating the still blank pages from the end of the book. She repeated the spell twice, handing each man a copy. 

“There. Now we need enough paper to be able to do that for all of them.”

They eyed the three books dubiously for a few moments before Draco perked up.

“We can go to Hogsmeade next weekend. We can pick up stationery there.”

“And ask for, what,” Nott paused as he calculated quickly, “enough parchment for sixty-odd books? How much will that cost?”

Hermione felt a sense of dread begin to descend over her. What had she been thinking? It had felt like one thing to neither assist nor condone the children of Death Eaters learning how to make wands. But this was different. She was arming them with the ability to pass along a detailed knowledge of wandmaking to others, even to their families. Malfoy’s father had his wand taken away in trial. He’s not allowed the use of magic for three years. She was arming his son with the ability to circumvent a just punishment.

She began to doubt what she had done, and she looked at the three books she had created on the table with trepidation. Good sleep had helped her, had reminded her that if she thought about it enough, she could solve every problem she was presented with. But it also felt as if caution was evaporating. She should have thought about this more.

The conversation continued as she wondered whether she had made a mistake.

“We might need to visit the vault. My personal money wasn’t touched by the reparations. How much would that much parchment be?” Malfoy said.

“I don’t have any idea how much is in the Nott vault. I haven’t looked yet.” Nott sighed, eyes on the tabletop. Hermione thought there was some other meaning that she was missing, judging by the way Draco grimaced slightly, and seemed to almost reach a hand across the table to Theo before remembering her presence and retreating.

“I have enough for my parchment,” said Hermione. 

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Please, even with half the coffers gone, there’s more than enough for the three of us. It would be ridiculous for either of you to pay. I’ll ask McGonagall if I can visit Gringott’s before Saturday.”

Hermione barely registered what Malfoy was saying.

“Malfoy?” There was a jarring quality to the way she said the word.

Draco paused, eyes on her. Theo had turned, too.

“When did you stop hating Muggleborns?” She cringed slightly as she asked.

Draco leaned back in his chair, face turned to stone. Theo had tensed across from him, eyes dark and deep. The night sky in the window across from her twinkled merrily. She could see the trees where she slept resting far down on the grounds.

“I don’t know,” he said, breaking the silence that had enveloped their little table. “I want to say when they were imprisoned in my cellar. That was the first time that I talked to a Muggle. But, that’s not true. I stopped long before, I just made a mistake. I thought bullying and pretending to be this—this disgusting person, would protect me and my family. It didn’t. I should have known better. I should have done the right thing, but I didn’t. And now I’m living with the consequences.” Draco shook his head, hand going up to cover his face for a moment. He sighed and stood. “I’ll see you Saturday, Granger.”


End file.
